Unwanted Company - Barbara Seranella (29 page)

After hanging up, Raleigh let his head rest on the
Plexiglas half wall of the pay phone. What happened to the good old
days, when a mission involved a simple in and out? Target,
assignment, execution. Bing, bang, boom. Now you had to play cutesy
with every mom-and-pop organization, fucking keystone cops. Fucking
Democrats—that's when it started. He should have quit then. Seen
the writing on the wall when that goddamn peanut farmer took the
helm. Jimmy Carter and his cutbacks sent the intelligence community
back to the Stone Age. Two and a half years of Reagan was only just
starting to repair the damage. A leader needed to be strong, like
Bismarck. Power is not achieved with speeches. It is bought with
"Blood and Iron" warfare and military. Great leaders take
whatever action is necessary whether or not it might be considered
legal or ethical by the day's standards.

And now the supreme irony. Wasn't it always a woman
who ultimately fucked up everything? Ellen, fucking Ellen. He
tightened his fist into a ball. She was like a bad memory, popping up
at the worst possible moments. There was only one thing for it—he
would have to find her himself before some hotshot prosecutor got
hold of her and turned the whole world inside out.

Raleigh climbed back into his Vega and headed for the
dead drop. He cruised an underpass in Westwood, seeing the chalk mark
recently placed there. This informed him that his documents would be
found inside the hollow trunk of a tree in the VA cemetery. Stone
crypts sheltered his movements as he retrieved the packet.

He waited until he was miles away before he unwrapped
the plastic cover and devoured the contents.

First, there were the police reports. Detective Tony
Cassiletti's neat print carefully cataloged all the known information
relating to the case of the Band-Aid Killer. Raleigh skimmed through
the affidavits of witnesses—or rather non-witnesses. People who had
been in the Westwood apartment building at the time of the homicides,
yet had reported not noticing anything amiss until the police and
coroner arrived. He lingered over the photographs of the dead woman.

The report on the Hollywood slaying had more details.
The weapon had been tentatively identified and toxicology reports
showed that the women had been drugged—it was assumed unwillingly.
In addition to the crime-scene photographs of the victims and the
apartment, there were also three videotapes recovered from
surveillance cameras. None of this came as any surprise to Raleigh.
He studied the photographs derived from the video footage. The
resolution was poor, but that fool Victor was easily recognizable. He
even smiled into the camera. Amateur.

The connection between Mace St. John and Munch
Mancini surfaced several times. The two of them had gone to Mexico
together, ostensibly to retrieve the limousine. Obviously there was
some personal connection going on there. Which meant that he might
not so easily abandon his investigation. St. John had also visited
the Tijuana morgue. He had absolutely no legal business there, not
that that would help anybody now. Forensics on the tape recovered
from the body of a teenage Mexican girl backed up St. John's theory
that he'd found yet another victim of the Band-Aid Killer. He'd
probably already made the connection between the dead girl and her
family. This cop was proving quite troublesome.

Raleigh also read with interest the police records of
Miranda "Munch" Mancini and Ellen Summers. The report on
Ellen was believable. He'd seen the bitch in action. Munch's priors
surprised him. Went to show you how well some people could blend in.
The FBI file on her would come in especially useful. The people in
disinformation would shred their credibility but hopefully the
situation would be contained without its coming to that. The country
didn't need another "conspiracy theory" debacle.

Raleigh stifled an exclamation of surprise when he
read about the semen Detective Cassiletti had discovered at the
Mancini residence. It was just as his mother always said, idle hands
were the devil's plaything.

He checked his watch. Victor was meeting him at the
Olympic Village at UCLA. Raleigh was tired of messing around with
this guy. It was time to make America safe.
 

CHAPTER 23

The couple who came to pick Ellen up for the meeting
drove a sixties-vintage Dodge Dart. A rainbow-hued bumper sticker
pasted to the back window read HIGHER POWERED. The man and woman were
much like the car, not much to look at but clean, Ellen thought as
she opened the door to greet them. The woman stuck out her hand, and
said, "Hi, I'm Diane, and this is Danny."

Isn't that just too cute? Ellen thought. It's a
wander they didn't have matching shirts. She shook the woman's hand
while smiling at the man. "I'm Ellen."

"So, Ellen," Diane said, casting glances at
Danny as if needing his approval for every word, What prompted you to
make the call?"

"
Call?"

"
To Central Office."

"Well," Ellen said, wondering if this were
this woman's first time out the chute, "everything was going so
great I just had a thought that I'd check y'al1 out. Just for fun."

Diane shot a perplexed look at Danny, who at least
had the what-with-all-to smile. "You ever been to a meeting
before?" he asked.

"Yeah," Ellen said. "They had groups
of you guys come see us up at CIW. " In fact, it was at that
meeting that she'd seen Munch again after five years of not hearing a
peep. She'd even wondered if that little pistol had gone and gotten
herself killed. But then there she was, sitting up on that panel of
reformed drug addicts and telling her story. If Ellen had not seen
and heard first hand, she wouldn't have believed it. Munch on the
straight and narrow. Who would have dreamed? She was so proud of her
she almost cried on the spot.

"
CIW?" Diane asked.

"California Institution for Women at Frontera,"
Ellen said.

"Oh."

"You never heard of it? " Ellen asked.
Jesus, where has this one been?

"No," Diane answered, her mouth losing that
happy-to-have-you-with-us smile. "I'm fortunate that my disease
never progressed that far." Danny-boy put a hand on her
shoulder. She stopped talking.

"Shall we go?" he asked. He opened the car
door for Ellen. She took a deep breath before stepping into the
backseat, wondering at her need for courage just then. She had
dressed for the occasion in jeans, sandals with two-inch heels, and a
white serving-wench-style shirt with billowing sleeves and a ruffled
front that revealed a generous peek of cleavage. She went with the
brunette wig and dark red lipstick, topping the outfit off with
silver loop earrings.

Danny-boy wore jeans and a T-shirt, but then ruined
everything with sandals. Guys who wore sandals gave her the creeps.
Diane had on fish-tank-algae green corduroys, a polyester shirt
buttoned all the way to the top, and a crocheted vest. Lord, Ellen
thought, if that's what it takes to get sober I might have to give
this whole business a good second think.

"So how long y'all been going to these
meetings?" she asked.

"I have sixteen months," Diane said
proudly, "and Danny is coming up on three years."

"Three, huh?" Ellen said. "I've got a
friend with seven years."

"
Who's that?" Diane asked.

"Isn't this supposed to be an anonymous
program?" Ellen asked.

"Not to each other, " Diane said.

"Well, still," Ellen said.

"
Is he married?" Danny asked.

"
Oh, you," Ellen said, playfully pushing
the back of Danny's head with her hand and letting her fingertips
linger at the back of his neck. She was gratified to see the skin
there flush red. "It's not like that at all. What you must
think."

Diane looked like her own neck was giving her
problems. Ellen gave Danny a little pat on the shoulder, then settled
back into her seat.

Danny rolled down his window a few inches, Ellen
noted with satisfaction. Getting a little warm, is he? "So,"
she said, catching Diane's eye in the rearview mirror, "is all
this A.A. stuff worth the trouble?"

"
Our worst day sober is better than our best day
using," Diane said.

Where had this one partied? Ellen wondered, starting
to feel a little sorry for the broad. "Is that right?" she
asked.

Diane nodded like one of those spring-necked dogs
that you put in the back window of your car. "All you have to
worry about is today," she said, and looked over at Danny, who
responded by patting her hand.

Pathetic, Ellen thought. This girl really needs my
help. "So, Diane," Ellen asked, "what do you do when
you really want to cut loose?"

Diane licked her lips and cast a nervous glance at
Danny.

"
I'm very content," she said.

"
That's not what I asked you," Ellen said.

"
What about you, Ellen?" Danny asked. "What
have you done for yourself lately?"

Ellen knew a trick question when she heard one. "Why,
I called y'all. Isn't that the first step? "

They arrived at the clubhouse. Diane drove the Dodge
down a narrow driveway and parked in the rear lot. Ellen's escorts
held hands all the way inside. Chairs were arranged around a long
cafeteria-style table. Ellen excused herself to use the bathroom.
Five minutes later someone knocked on the door. The lights flicked on
and off.

"Meeting's starting," a voice yelled in to
her.

"I'll be there directly," she said. She
splashed cold water on her face and went out to join them.

The room had filled up some. There were maybe twelve
people seated around the table. Wasn't that the number at the Last
Supper? she wondered. Diane gave her hand a little squeeze as she sat
down.

"This is going to be a little different than the
meeting you went to before," Diane said. "Instead of
speakers on a panel, this will be a participation meeting. All you
have to do is listen."

"And what if I want to say something?"
Ellen asked. Isn't that what they all do at these meetings? Spill
their guts.

"You can't share at the meeting unless you have
twenty-four hours of consecutive sobriety."

Ellen mentally calculated. She'd gotten loaded about
mid-day yesterday. Well, maybe a teensy bit later, but considering
the lack of effect she was perfectly justified in docking a few
hours. "I qualify," she said.

Diane looked at her uncertainly. "You do?"

Ellen started to get pissed off. If they were going
to question her integrity first off . . .

The guy sitting at the head of the table read a bunch
of stuff, then he called on someone else to read the Twelve Steps and
some other stuff. They'd done all that in the jailhouse meetings,
too, so she tuned out, waited for them to get it over with. Finally,
the meeting got under way. Some guy told a story about trying to
install his own toilet over the weekend and how everything went
wrong. "Self will run riot," he said.

Everybody laughed. Ellen didn't see what that had to
do with anything. When he finished, she raised her hand. The leader
looked at her with that same uncertain expression on his face, then
called on Diane. Ellen had trained herself early in life not to
react, to stay unaffected by others' power trips and efforts to
control. If you let people's disapproval get to you, you'd never have
any fun at all.

Diane told some sad-sack tale about how her mother
didn't understand her and her father ignored her and she was learning
to set boundaries. Ellen tapped her foot impatiently. Boy, could she
teach these people a thing or two. Who gave a shit what her mother
did or didn't understand? Today was what was important, That was
another thing. Diane could do a whole lot better than that Danny
fellow, sitting there so smug with his personalized ceramic mug. Mr.
No Socks, Mr. Sandals. What kind of a real man wears sandals anyway?
That's what she should be noticing—not the way his eyes walked all
over Ellen. Hell, she should be glad he was red-blooded enough for
that. That was the real compliment. If he was some low-testosterone
wimp who never looked at another woman, that said nothing. But if he
kept coming back to her after his eye wandered. Well, that was
something else again. What that girl needed was some confidence. A
makeover. Like the one Ellen did for that little gal in Mexico.
Giovanna. In fact that little interlude with Giovanna was one of the
few things Ellen did remember of her activities before she passed
out. She laughed to herself, shaking her head. Munch was right. What
good was partying if you couldn't remember any of it?

"
Did you Want to share?" the leader asked
her, breaking her reverie.

"
Do what now?" Ellen asked.

"
Didn't you have your hand up?"

"
Oh, you mean talk. Sure. My name's Ellen,"
she said, copying how the others had begun.

"What are you?" the leader asked.

"
I'm a Scorpio," she said. To her
consternation, everybody laughed.

"No," the leader said, putting on a tone of
voice as if he were speaking to some idiot child. "Identify your
disease."